i have had 3 spawns now and lost 3 babies recently 1 i saw do a spirral swin up towards the top of the tank then died then i found another 2 on diff days just floating at the bottom of my tank no marks on them or signs of illness ??? just wondered if anyone else has had this happen. do you think it could be the big zebs biting them or something or just something that happens they were prob about a month or so old aboout 1inch ??????

Hi Craig, yes I have had this happen to me before, last year on some fry around a month or so I lost 4 or 5 toal from 4 spawns which I had around 40 fry, these had been placed in 2 fry traps.
I was losing the odd fish every few days & all fish looked fine & healthy.
This year I was lucky to have my first spawn in my big 700l tank that I had been waiting for a spawn for 2 1/2 yrs
It resulted in 15 fry that I put into a breeding trap & again around a month old I have lost 3, these are 2 months now & doing fine.
I can't answer whats happening I put it down to nature & they may have had some internal problems
But once I get past the month stage they always seem fine after that.
I guess that if they where left in the main tank we would rarely see any dead babies as its a lot harder to count or see them there compared to a breeding trap.
I normally return fry back to the breeding tank to grow on after 3 months & I only placed my new babies in a trap as I have FX5 filters that would suck babies up, I will put these babies in another tank with a smaller filter.

Baby zebs don't like high nitrates, but you probably know this but I thought it worth mentioning.
There have been many people on here that have lost fry to nitrates & I even lost my first batch to this & then changed to RO water as my tap water contained high nitrates.

cheers stevie yeh all mine look healthy eatin well chunky for their size too keep water clean as do about 60% each week just didnt understand what happened to them just had another spawn too so thats nov dec and feb ive had 1 had 24 and ive spotted at least another 10 if not more they all hide under my wood where the food get blown under and keep out the way apart from the odd cheeky 1 goes trying to eat with the young adults